


to see our glory

by Kisatsel



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Angst, Canon Era, Canonical Character Death, Cunnilingus, F/M, Flashbacks, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Multi, Porn with Feelings, Spanking, doomed attempts at threesomes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2016-07-23
Packaged: 2018-05-08 19:33:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5510372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kisatsel/pseuds/Kisatsel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>I wish you were at liberty to transgress the bounds of Pensylvania. I would invite you after the fall to Albany to be witness to the final consummation.</i>
</p><p>John Laurens arrived at their house on a crisp January morning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Summary quote from that one [letter](http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-02-02-0860) Hamilton sent to Laurens (you know the one).

Alexander is more distant than ever after he receives the news of John’s death, and there is an edge of wildness to him when he climbs into their bed late at night. He still will not speak of it, but she can tell he is angry: at Laurens, at himself, at the world. He fucks her less carefully than usual and the drag of his cock inside her awakens an answering wildness in Eliza. She digs her fingers into his arms and shudders around him, pulls him deeper inside her as if by doing so she can prevent her husband from stumbling towards the abyss. Afterwards he rolls over and burrows deep into the blankets, curled in around himself, a tense knot of a person on which her gentle hands can find no purchase.

Being loved by Hamilton has made her feel like the most cherished woman on God’s earth, but sometimes loving him back is a very lonely thing.

\--

John Laurens arrived at their house on a crisp January morning.

Laurens sometimes had to be talked into bed, Alexander had explained to her with an eager glint in his eye, but now that there were two of them they would surely be twice as effective in this endeavor. And Laurens, once convinced, was both spirited and generous, Alexander continued, smirking a little as if at some recollection. 

It had been just over three weeks since they were married, and Eliza still felt like she was floating rather than walking around their house much of the time. In the evenings they often sat down for serious talks where Alexander clasped her hands in his and they spoke ardently of their hopes for their life together. This conversation, however, had turned out a little differently.

“I wasn’t under the impression that there was room for this kind of sharing in the marriage vows,” Eliza said. She felt unsure of her desires for the first time since Alexander had approached her at the ball a year ago. “But you are to be a lawyer, after all. I’m sure you will tell me why there should be.”

“There doesn’t have to be,” Alexander said, hesitant for once. His brow was creased, as if he had only just realized what he was asking of her. “It’s more that – with your permission – I’d like to share more of myself with you.” He lifted his head to gaze at her beseechingly.

Eliza stared helplessly back. “God help John Laurens, if this is the sort of trick you use to convince people,” she said with a breathless laugh.

“I have a great many more tricks, as it happens,” Alexander said. He gave her a brief, giddily delighted smile and then bent down to kiss her hand where it was clutched in his. His mouth drifted over her skin and he licked delicately over her finger where her wedding ring rested. “I will do whatever it takes to convince you that I am wholly devoted to you.”

Eliza attempted to breathe steadily. “I do not know him,” she reminded him. “I know that he cares greatly for you, which is certainly a mark of character. But beyond that…”

She saw Alexander nod in understanding. The conversation certainly wasn’t over, but Alexander seemed keen to remind her of his affections, so Eliza decided that it would have to suffice for now.

\--

And so it was that Eliza opened the front door the next morning and saw a small man wrapped up in a thick coat standing on the doorstep. He twitched when he saw her and smoothed his hands over his sides.

“John Laurens, ma’am. I believe your husband is expecting me?”

“As am I,” Eliza said. “Come on in, John, and warm yourself by the fire. You can leave your boots by the door.”

Laurens had dark smudges under his eyes and without his coat he appeared slight and undernourished. He looked around the house with a wary but determined caution, as if he expected the British to jump out from behind the settee. Or perhaps it was Alexander that he was awaiting with such trepidation. Trying to see the room through the eyes of this newcomer, for a moment Eliza felt like a stranger to her own marriage.

Then she saw her husband standing in the doorway of his study and watching the two of them.

“Alexander,” she said, “will you not join us by the fire? No doubt we make a curious tableau, but John has traveled a long way to see you.”

“Curious it may be, but I believe it is the best thing I have seen in a while,” he said.

He walked over to Eliza, kissed her, and then went to stand before Laurens.

“Laurens, my friend,” Alexander said. “You took a break from risking your hide to come and visit us. I’m honored.” His tone was light-hearted but he was fidgeting, twisting his hands together; he threw a brief glance of what might have been apology towards Eliza and then flung himself in Laurens’ lap and buried his head in his neck. Laurens’ arms wrapped tightly around Alexander and he closed his eyes and muttered something into Alexander’s hair.

Eliza sat watching for a moment as they held onto each other.

She rose and placed her hands on her husband’s shoulders. He twisted his head and stared at her wonderingly. His eyes were shining wetly. “Alexander, I believe I’m going to take a walk,” Eliza said. “You can expect me back before lunch.”

“I will,” Alexander said. “I will. Betsey, I don’t deserve you.”

“Well, you have me,” she said.

Outside the trees stretching over the street were bare, and the chill air stung her cheeks. She felt the truth of what she had told him burning steadily inside of her.

_So you are the first of us to become a wife_ , Angelica had said slyly after their father had approved the match, and Eliza had blushed; she had pictured a great many things when she imagined her life with Alexander Hamilton, but leaving her husband to find solace in the arms of his soldier-friend had not featured prominently. 

But she loved him, so much so that it took her breath away, his ferocious intellect, his bravery and his breathtaking idealism: she wanted to give him things. Now it seemed she had given him Laurens, who was never hers in the first place, all in the hope that Alexander might give her more of himself in return.

She walked, alone with her thoughts, until her feet began to grow numb from cold and she could not allow herself to delay any longer. 

When Eliza pushed open the door, John Laurens padded into the corridor and greeted her with a nod.

Eliza stifled a laugh as she divested herself of her coat and gloves.

“What is it?” Laurens said, staring at her with bewilderment.

“We have reversed our places exactly from when you first arrived this morning, Mr. Laurens,” she said brightly.

His eyes widened with the fear of the thief who has been caught red-handed. “Ah,” he said. Laurens had an easy gait and a wide, sweet mouth which seemed made for smiling, and now he stood frozen still, guilt twisting his features. Eliza regretted her careless words immediately.

“Come and sit with me for a bit,” she said impulsively. “We have much to talk over, and I would like to know you better.”

She took his hand and led him through to the living room. Laurens followed obediently and took a seat.

“I’m hoping to learn more about you,” Eliza began, “but first I must ask where you have hidden my husband.”

Laurens rested his chin in his hand, looking a little more at ease. Eliza smiled hopefully at him. Though she did not have Angelica’s knack for witty conversation, she had found that kindness and persistence could achieve a lot.

“He’s in the bedroom. Sometimes I, too, need to take a break from Alexander,” Laurens said wryly. “And I suspected you might be returning soon.”

“Alexander suggested that I could help him seduce you, but clearly my help was not necessary,” Eliza said lightly.

Now it was Laurens’ turn to let out a strangled laugh. “He truly said that?” Laurens asked. Eliza nodded. “For a future leader of our nation, he is remarkably blind about certain things. Mrs. Hamilton…”

“Call me Eliza,” she interjected.

“Eliza, even a woman as enchanting as you cannot hold any appeal for me, much as I have had cause to wish otherwise in my life.” Laurens said.

“Oh!” Eliza exclaimed. “Yes, Alexander has certainly misunderstood in that case. As have I, perhaps,” she allowed. She reached over to take his freckled hand in hers. “You have missed him.”

Laurens bowed his head. “Yes,” he said.

“You must stay till Sunday.”

“I leave tomorrow,” he said. “Having been extended this impossibly generous offer by you and your husband, I intend to take it. And having done so I intend to leave, and to be away for a while.”

“But-” Eliza began, and did not know how to continue. “We would be glad to have you for longer.” She found that she meant it.

“Eliza.” Laurens fixed his gaze on her with stubborn resolution. “I have sorely needed this. But the war lingers on, and that is where I can be of most use.”

Eliza squeezed his hand. “If that is how you feel, I will be truly sorry to see you leave,” she said. “And now we really must go and find Alexander. What on earth has he been doing all this while?”

“I told him to wait for us,” Laurens said.

She raised her eyebrows. “And he has stayed there all this while?”

“Alexander is his own man, but he can be obedient if you know how to push him the way he likes to be pushed,” Laurens said.

“If that’s true, I – I would very much like to know how,” Eliza said.

“And you shall,” Laurens said, sharing a conspiratorial grin with her. His words sent an excited shiver running down her spine.

They rose together and Eliza marveled at how one morning, one man, could turn everything upside-down so quickly.

But she was not scared. Love would lead her to stranger places yet, she was sure.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Um. Hi? Eight months later, I managed to finish this off. Sorry for the ridiculously long wait!

“After you, ma’am,” Laurens said, holding the bedroom door open.

Light was streaming in through the windows and Alexander was sitting cross legged on their bed, reading a book of essays.

“At long last, he returns!” Alexander said without looking up from his book. He had an undershirt on but nothing else, the collar wide open and revealing a trail of marks across his throat and chest.

Eliza cleared her throat. Alexander’s head snapped up. He looked uncharacteristically nervous and she felt a rush of tenderness towards him. “I’m afraid I accosted John downstairs and distracted him with conversation,” she said. 

“Just conversation?” 

Laurens walked around the other side of the bed, took the book from Alexander’s hands, closed it and placed it on the bedside table. “Yes,” he said fondly. “Just conversation.” Alexander blinked at Laurens and then folded his knees up under his chin.

“Alexander and I have agreed that he has a lot to make up to you,” Laurens said to Eliza directly, resting a hand on Alexander’s shoulder. “Isn’t that true, Alexander?”

“Yes. Eliza, I’m sorry, I should have asked you before inviting John, I ask too much of you-”

“Quiet,” Laurens - John, he must be John, when so little distance remained between them - said. “Go to her and show her.” He gave Alexander a gentle shove. 

Eliza sat down on the bed and Alexander shuffled over and kissed her, soft and hesitant. She’d hungered for his mouth on hers all day, thinking about him and John touching, kissing each other, and she tasted her husband eagerly. Something about Alexander was different this evening: he let her explore his mouth at her leisure and hummed softly when she slid her hands under his shirt to run them over his back. It awakened an itching need under her skin.

John sat down next to them on the bed and leaned back against the headboard. “Alexander hasn’t come yet,” he said. “He has been waiting for you.”

“Not this whole morning?” Eliza asked. John nodded.

Alexander groaned into her mouth.

“But,” John continued, “he will attend to you first, of course.”

“You’d better get me out of this then,” Eliza said teasingly, brushing her hands over the skirts of her dress. She moved to stand by the bed and Alexander followed, unselfconsciously naked, and began to unbutton her, his nimble fingers moving quickly over the fastenings. Eliza stepped out of the dress and pulled her shift over her head so that she was as naked as he, and took his hand in hers.

“Hi,” he said softly. Eliza pressed her fingers to one of the bruises on his neck and he breathed in sharply.

They returned hand in hand to Laurens. He was watching them hungrily – or rather, he was watching Alexander. Eliza was watching Alexander too. He spread her legs and settled between them, giving her a brief glance, flushed and imploring. Eliza nodded. 

Alexander let his eyes drift close and kissed her thigh. Eliza felt a hot twist in her gut, a hunger that rose up sharp and almost unsettling, and then suffused through her body. She was wet already, probably smearing it on the sheets as she shifted restlessly, her hips seeking his mouth. She sighed back against the sheets. 

“Alexander,” John bit out. 

His tongue flicked against her, sudden and warm; Eliza inhaled, a hiss of breath. He worked her gently, soft licks where she had opened herself for him, but it was not enough. 

“I need more,” she said, and John said “You heard her,” with that same edge of disapproval that, though it ought to have shocked Eliza, only made her bolder. 

She wrapped a hand in Alexander’s hair above the curve of his ear and closed her fingers experimentally. He moaned against her cunt. Eliza closed her hand into a fist and jerked his head up to here she needed him, just below the soft dark patch of curls, and he sucked hard, harder still when she tightened her grip, and worked eagerly until it hit her sudden and blinding, shocking a cry out of her. She bucked up into the hot press of his mouth and rode out the waves of her pleasure, slowly loosening the clutch of her fingers until she was stroking his hair. 

Eliza kicked her feet against the blankets, and turned her face into the pillow; this burst of elation was surely undignified next to John’s sly composure. 

When she met John’s gaze, finally, he looked at her as if they were sharing a secret. “I suppose,” he said without looking down at Alexander, “you think you’ve made amends now.”

Alexander laid his head in Eliza’s lap and swung his legs across the bed to sprawl comfortably over John. “Not in the slightest,” he said, his mouth pressing damp against Eliza’s stomach. 

“You could have his mouth again,” John said. He ran a hand over Alexander’s back, and Alexander arched up into his touch. 

“I’ll wait.” Eliza scratched at Alexander’s scalp with her fingers. She liked him like this, pliant and leaning up into her touch, wanted to make him cry and writhe the way he could her, to see her marks alongside John’s the next morning. She met John’s eyes and realized, with a shiver of delight, that he was thinking the same thing. 

“Alexander. Do you want to feel it after I leave?” John had a possessive hand laid on Alexander’s backside.

Her husband nodded. His hand snaked up to clasp hers. 

John meant to strike him, to redden his golden sunlit skin and bruise him perhaps, and Alexander was squirming with eagerness in his lap, his fingers sweaty against hers.

Eliza bit the inside of her lip. “Stay still,” she told him. Alexander raised his head to meet her eyes, jerked a nod and then buried himself down into her lap again. 

John brought his hand down once, and again, loud enough that the crack of it echoed in her ears. Alexander whimpered. John struck him on the other cheek, leaving an imprint, and set up a steady rhythm. Eliza was very conscious that she was staring. Well, she thought, here were her husband, and his friend, in bed with her by some marvelous fortuity, and she would do well to pay attention. 

Alexander was letting out little hitching breaths. John had stopped, was nudging him up onto his hands and knees. 

“Ten more from your wife.” 

Alexander shuffled over to her. She ran wondering hands over his skin, moved him where she wanted him and did not tremble despite the desire that flamed within her. He didn’t try to rub against her thigh though he must have needed very badly. 

“I’ve warmed him for you.” John was beautiful, smile twitching across his face, lounging back with his curls brushed away from his face, still clothed.

Sure enough, Alexander skin was hot to the touch. “Yes,” Eliza murmured, rubbing her thumb over his hand, “like that,” and then smacked him; hard enough, she hoped. He sobbed quietly, his head bowed. 

She counted in her head, her palm stinging, cataloging his twitches and cries, and stopped at ten to rearrange him, a shaky bundle of limbs, so that he was gathered in her lap. 

“Look at that,” John said, mock sympathy and real admiration. Alexander’s cock was hard and bobbed against his belly. 

“I waited all morning,” Alexander said pathetically. “You’re a cruel man, John. Eliza’s sweet to me.” He bowed his head to kiss her fingers, and she tipped his chin up and ran a finger over his lower lip. It wasn’t a compliment but a plea, Eliza realised, and pursed her lips thoughtfully. She glanced at his erection. 

“Betsy. Darling heart.” Hint of a sob in his voice. 

Eliza’s patience had limits, and she wanted to see him break apart. She took his cock in her hand and smeared the moisture over it. He thrust up frantically into her grip, mouth hanging open, gazing at her with such adoration that she thought, caught in the spell of that one long rich moment, that she could live off his love and nothing more, threadbare yet glutted, for the rest of her years. When he reached his release he spilled for longer than she’d ever seen him, then collapsed onto the sheets and commenced sucking her fingers clean with lazy, disheveled contentment. 

She had his mouth again, soon enough, made him draw it out until she was soaking wet, bearing down on three of his fingers, and caught her breath as he and John rutted against each other, clawing and rolling back and forth, and finally they all collapsed in an exhausted heap.

“Take this off,” Eliza said sternly, sitting with her back to the headboard and observing the two young men at her feet. “It’s a good shirt, and you will ruin it with these exertions.” 

“John, dearest,” Alexander put in, “let the lady gaze upon your chest.” 

Eliza seized at the cotton of John’s silly, sweat-damp garment, and yanked it over his head. He frowned at her. 

“You should feel comfortable with us,” she said. 

John gestured, aggrieved, to the bed and to her naked self, his naked legs. “I spend most nights huddled in a freezing hut.”

“John gets cold,” Alexander confided. He had contrived to work his way in-between the two of them, so that his face was planted on John’s chest. John grumbled quietly and closed his eyes. In the quiet of the bedroom she could hear how he and Alexander breathed in unison. 

Alexander was hers, she knew this now better than ever before, and yet there was another story here, hidden away in the space between the two bodies beside her and not hers to know. 

Eliza, supine and sated, amused herself by dreaming of those worlds where she had never stepped foot. They did not rouse themselves until late in the day. 

\----

Eliza enters the study without knocking and contemplates for a moment the familiar sight of Alexander’s back hunched over his desk. 

Action, she has concluded, must be taken. If only to relieve her own loneliness. She starts by taking a stack of law books and placing them neatly on the floor, then moves to the paper littering the desk, whisking them out from beneath his busy hand. Hamilton drops his quill and scrabbles wildly. She ignores him, sweeps at the remaining sheets with her hands and swings herself up onto the desk. 

“Forget the papers. Let go of your words. Look at me. Look at me, Alexander.”

Alexander lifts his eyes and directs the full force of his considerable irritation at Eliza. His scowl lines are deeper than they used to be.

“This cannot continue,” Eliza says. 

“My career, you mean?” he snaps. “It’s a great inconvenience to you, I’m aware, that I am called to serve our nation and to represent her citizens-”

I,” Eliza retorts, “am inconvenienced by a great many things you do, Alexander, but I do not keep you from your work. I do not ask the impossible.” 

“If that is the case, you will please remove yourself from my study and allow me the use of my desk. The Morgan case goes to trial in three days, as you well know.” 

“The man can hang for all I care,” Eliza says. “I’ve missed you. You’ve been gone for days.” 

“I greatly hope to avoid a hanging verdict since he is suing for collection of debts,” Alexander says, “and I have been right here.” Eliza doesn’t contradict him. She lets her legs swing idly under the desk and then brings her small, stockinged feet up to rest in his lap. Alexander tilts his head down to look at them and wraps his hands around her heels. 

“I miss him,” Eliza says quietly. 

Alexander’s hands tighten around her ankle and then still and his voice, when he speaks, is hard. “You hardly knew him.”

“And yet I thought of him often. He was very brave.”

“Reckless,” Alexander says. “Short-sighted and impetuous.”

“Yes,” she agrees. “That sounds like him.”

Alexander tips his head slowly forward to rest on her legs. “Eliza,” he says into the fabric, muffled, “I am very angry. The waste of it.” 

She strokes his neck and is horribly, frighteningly grateful to him for surviving the war, for coming back to her and for staying. 

“Darling,” Eliza says, when she has collected herself enough for it to come out lightly, “my feet are growing numb, I’m afraid.” 

Alexander stands and puts his arms around her. She wraps her legs around his waist and giggles as he carries her down the corridor to the bedroom. 

When they reach the bed Alexander lays her down and stretches out next to her, leaning on one elbow so that he can scrutinize her, like he’s seeing her again for the first time since the letter came. 

“I’m glad you didn’t know him better,” he tells her, reassuring. “Laurens gets.” A pause; he breathes in and out slowly. “Laurens got under the skin somehow, you know, and I wouldn’t want you to have to feel this way.”

“Would you wish that for yourself? To have been strangers?”

“No.”

“Then wish me something better. A husband who shares his sorrows when they trouble him, for example.”

Alexander manages to convey both aggrievement and incredulity with his eyebrows. Eliza sighs. She plucks at his cravat until his neck is bare, and lies back to watch as he undresses for bed. Her head aches, and the cool pillow is a relief. So is his arm, drawing him to her. 

“Perhaps,” she whispers, “Philip will sleep through the night tonight.”

“And tomorrow, we will receive notice that my proposals to the state legislators have been accepted,” he mumbles. “Every single one. And Burr will greet me pleasantly in the street. And a letter will come...” She tucks her head in the crook of his shoulder. “Sent before the battle, delayed on its journey, he could have, Betsey, he could have sent one.” 

“Sleep,” she says. “You must rest.”

“I’m not tired.” 

Eliza laughs out loud. He runs a hand under her shift, trailing over her thigh and belly and she sits up to pull it over her head. Puts a hand on his wrist and digs her fingernails in until his eyes go wide. Selfishly, she wants to see him desperate for her and her alone.

“My turn to use you tonight.” Her heart thuds. “Will you stay the way I want you?”

Alexander shifts beneath her grip; he nods. Eliza undresses him and stretches him out for her and sinks down on him when she is ready with a long, slow exhale. 

She chose right, Eliza thinks triumphantly as he writhes beneath her, gasping for her touch. She will choose him for as long as she’s able. 

\---

“We’ll see you again,” Alexander said. The clock hand had moved steadily round and round though she’d willed it to stay, and eventually John had bundled himself back up into his coat and Eliza had wrapped up some cheese and bread in paper for him with an admonishment to eat them while they were still fresh, and now they stood on the doorstep, trying their very best to let him go. “You will visit us. We’ll drink to your health.” 

“Some day,” John promised, shifting from foot to foot.

Alexander gazed at him, bereft. “Write to me. I will have need of your council. I will. John, I need you.” He seemed to be pleading. John was glaring at his boots. 

“Write me,” Alexander said belligerently, “or suffer my wrath, which as you well know is fierce and terrible. And I will write to you of our marital bliss, and much more besides.” He smirked. Eliza elbowed him. 

John lifted his head to flash irritation at Alexander, then gave a nod and a tight smile. 

“As you know,” Alexander continued, his familiar tone: _I’m not finished yet_ , “your well-being is essential to my own.” 

John said nothing, just breathed out bright clouds into the winter air and watched the two of them as if fixing their image in his memory with furious precision. 

“It’s late,” John said. “Though I’d linger by your hearth if I could, there are redcoats awaiting me. We’re still not free.” 

“Keep well, John,” Eliza said. She wrapped her arms around him and pressed her forehead to the fine wool of his coat. Soldier boys, she thought, and felt much older than she had yesterday morning, a young bride opening the door to a stranger. Alexander shoved his face up against John so that his hair flicked in her eyes and they stayed huddled tightly together before Alexander did something with his mouth that made John splutter and stumble back. 

“Goodbye,” John said, blinking quickly. He hoisted his pack over his shoulder. “Be sweet to one another, and - think of me. I won’t forget this.” 

If she were a man she might have felt the urge to salute; instead Eliza lifted her arm to wave, and took her husband’s hand, and kissed the tears from beneath his eyes. They stood together, holding one another, for long after John was gone from sight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are loved! Kiwisatsuma on tumblr.


End file.
